Special
by AryYuna
Summary: "Why you assign me as liaison agent with the press?" . Tag 9x15 'Secrets'. Tony/Wendy undertones, but no real pairing. Rated T for language and sensible thematics, but nothing explicit. Team ensemble.
1. Chapter 1

_I honestly think episode 9x15 is one of the stupidest - maybe _the_ stupidest, tie with 10x10 - episodes of NCIS ever. But among the stupidity, they introduced Wendy… who isn't Tony's high school music teacher anymore, but a journalist. Oh, joy, we love continuity, uh? -.- Well, _I_ love continuity and I love Tony, so I decided to straighten things up and maybe find a reason why Gibbs chose DiNozzo to work with the journalist. Oh, and I don't care she said it's been nine years and a half, because math says it's been almost eleven years (ten years and a half, if I'm right) since Tony started working for Gibbs, and from what I understood the almost-wedding was right before Tony's time at NCIS._

_Good, now that everything is clear, I hope you enjoy the story :) To make sure I was following canon even when I couldn't remember the episodes, I used .com (that's why my Tony was born in 1972, no matter how much older they made him in recent seasons). Second NCIS story, first case-fic. Hell, who'd have thought writing a case would be so hard? XD_

_My biggestest thank you goes to my wonderful beta, _**FrancyChan**_. She's a Saint, guys, believe me: not only she was patient enough to proof-read this fanfiction in Italian, she also corrected its English version, and she was… professional, that's it. Thank you, Francy, you are the best! :D_

_Any remaining mistakes are mine, do not hesitate to point them out to can find this story in Italian here: __www . efpfanfic . net (slash) viewstory . php ?sid=2156775&i=1 (Remove spaces and use replace "(slash)" with "/")_

**Disclaimer**_: sadly, I do not own NCIS. If I did, I wouldn't be here writing fanfictions, you would actually watch my ideas on screen. And Tony would be married to a 23-yr-old Italian girl named Arianna. And McGee would still have a normal family (at least one member on the team!). And Senior would have never appeared on the show _u_u_ But NCIS is not mine…_

* * *

**Special**

**Chapter 1**

The reports completed, Gibbs' team left their bullpen on the third floor of the Naval Base in Washington DC. Not all its members went home, though.

Special Agent Anthony 'Tony' DiNozzo said good-bye to his team mates, got into his car and left the parking lot, wondering what to do next. He didn't want to go home to find himself alone and thinking about the day, remembering a dead and buried past, reliving a pain never truly left beyond.

A part of him wanted to go where he always went when he didn't want to stay alone with his thoughts; but somehow the idea of drinking bourbon with his boss among dust didn't sound right to him - probably because Gibbs was partially to blame for how he felt in that moment: what the hell had he been thinking when he'd chosen _him_ as a liaison agent with the press, with _Wendy_?

This just left him with one choice: go back to the office. Taking care of his backlog paperwork, get a head start on his monthly reports… at least he would keep himself busy, and not thinking.

He got back to the Naval Base and parked his car into his lot, snorting to himself while looking for a change of clothes in his backpack - he had no intention of keeping the same clothes two days in a row, and besides the others would've noticed he'd spent the night in the office; he totally didn't want them to know.

He locked his car and turned toward the elevator, but he noticed Ziva's Mini Cooper still in her parking lot. Frowning, he put his backpack back in his car and got close… warily, because with Ziva you could never be too sure of anything.

When he was close enough, he noted the woman behind the wheel staring with an unreadable expression at something she had in her hands.

"Ziva?" he hesitantly called, and - for the first time since she knew her - he saw her start while trying to hide whatever she had in her hands - was it Ray's ring box?

"Tony!" she said lowering the window, and her voice had an uncharacteristic high note. "I thought you had left; what are you doing still here?"

"I could ask you the same" he replied with a smirk.

"Uh… I… had forgotten something" Ziva awkwardly answered, and the excuse sounded lame to her own ears; she hastily added "What about you?"

Tony shrugged, but he didn't answer.

"Why are you here in the garage?" he asked.

Something must've clicked in Ziva's head at that, because she suddenly blinked as trying to rouse herself and got self-defensive.

"What I do or do not do his none of your business" she snapped, and Tony saw in her eyes the uneasiness at being caught vulnerable, with her Mossad-assassin mask missing. And he knew enough about masks to not take offence for her harsh tone; he knew enough about the need to hide behind a mask and keep others at arm's length in order to protect oneself to not insist. He raised his hands as in surrender.

"_Pardon_" he said with a half smile. "Lock your doors, though: you can never know what people wander around here at night, and I wouldn't want to find their bodies in the morning. You are scary enough when nobody's accusing you of murder."

Ziva snorted, but she was actually grateful for not insisting and for the message hidden in the joke: 'be careful'. She remembered Detective Nick Burris' words _(1)_ about the importance of friendship; she smiled.

"Good night, Tony."

She watched him walk away e disappear behind one of the garage pillar, wondering what he was really doing still at the base. She hoped he just stopped to collect something… or maybe someone. Maybe the blonde that worked in the evidence archive; Ziva had often found him flirting with her. Somehow, she really hoped that was the reason, that he wasn't gonna spend the night alone, in the office. That he'd found something - or someone - to… _distract_ himself: she'd seen him in the last few days, when Ms Miller had been there, and she really hoped that seeing her again after so many years hadn't hurt him too bad.

She started her car, glancing for the last time at the little box Ray had given her, and she left the garage.

A little while later, when she was out of sight, Tony collected his backpack from his car and hurried toward the elevator, the smile he'd plastered on his face while he was talking with Ziva was now gone. Seeing the little squared box in her hands had reminded him of the very memories he was back to the Base to forget. He understood just too well how Ziva had to have felt when her love story with Ray was over. Behind the cold former Mossad officer façade, they all knew there was a more vulnerable and sensible woman than she wanted others to believe, and since Tony himself had been close to getting married, he knew what his coworker had to have felt…

He got out of the elevator on the third floor, resolutely shoving those thoughts in the back of his mind, determined to focus on work. He turned his computer and lamp on, put his backpack on the floor and his badge and gun in the drawer. He pulled his monthly reports and the other paperwork piled up because there was never enough time and, sighing, he began to work.

It was almost three in the morning when he finally fell asleep on the report he was writing - something about team Gibbs' last firing range mandatory exam.

He awoke four hours later, less rested than he would've liked, but with enough time left to get showered in the gym, change and pretend he was just arrived from his home like every morning.

"Good morning, Boss!" he greeted more cheerful than he needed reentering the bullpen.

The former Marine was already on the phone, and he just acknowledged him with a nod without redirecting his attention from the call; Tony knew though that nothing escaped his boss' notice, and knew better than to think he looked as rested as he was pretending.

"Alright" the older man said to the person in the receiver, and DiNozzo was already clipping his badge to his belt.

"Shall I call McGee and Ziva?" he asked leaning down to take his backpack.

Gibbs tossed him the keys of the truck.

"Gas the truck, I'll call the others."

"Got it, Boss."

* * *

The crime scene was the living room of a cottage in a residential district.

The victim, Petty Officer Mary Elizabeth Adler, was on the floor between the couch and the shattered remains of a glass-topped coffee table. From her body's position, the broken table, the overturned lamps and the decorative objects scattered on the floor, it was clear there'd been a struggle.

Tony bagged and tagged the blood-stained glass shards while Ducky and Palmer were examining the victim. McGee was taking photos of the room, while Gibbs and Ziva were outside to interview the neighbors.

"What can you tell me, Duck?" Gibbs asked walking in. Ziva wasn't with him, so she was probably still talking with the neighbors - and she definetely didn't like it; she hated collecting witnesses' statements.

"She died last night, between nine and ten; most certainly, the cause of death was this head wound, provoked by her fall on the table" the elderly coroner replied showing him the deep cut produced by a large piece of glass under the victim's bloody hair.

"So the table is the culprit" Palmer chuckled, earning a glare from Gibbs and a reproaching snort from Ducky. "I'm sorry" he muttered opening the black body bag.

Rolling his eyes at his assistant, Ducky resumed his examination.

"She struggled for long before succumbing to her assailant."

Gibbs nodded and the coroners closed the body into the black bag while his agents finished taking photos, sketching and bagging the evidence. The former Marine watched his senior agent work quietly, trying to gauge what was on his mind. As soon as he'd arrived to the office, he'd noticed the neat pile of DiNozzo's completed reports, and he'd realized that - in order to do that - his agent had to have spent the night at the office; his suspicions were confirmed by the dark shadows under his second in command's eyes. He said nothing - but he was sure Tony was aware of his stare - and along with his two younger agents he patiently waited for an annoyed Ziva to return. Back to the Yard, the three younger agents got to work.

After having brought the evidence to Abby and briefly informed Vance, Gibbs entered his team's bullpen and his agents shot up from their chairs and took place around him in front of the plasma.

"Petty Officer Mary Elizabeth Adler" McGee started pushing a button on the remote to summon the woman's file on the monitor. "Twenty-nine, born in Seattle; her parents and fifteen-year-old brother still live there. She joined the Navy as soon as she finished school, used to send her monthly paycheck to her parents until she got married two years ago, cut all the ties with her family and erased them as her next of kin. She got home nine days ago after being deployed for three months."

Tony took the remote and went on.

"Her CO speaks highly of her; no reprimands, she follows orders, no whining. On the private side, it seems she changed a lot since her wedding: more reserved, introvert. Her best friend, Petty Officer Carol Raven, says she spotted her while covering some bruises with make-up, but she brushed it off with a stupid excuse."

"Domestic abuse" Gibbs gathered.

"So it looks. According to Ms Raven, the husband's a scoudrel and the reason for her rift with her parents. It was Ms Raven who found Petty Officer Adler this morning, she was supposed to pick her up to hang out and found her on the living room floor. Her husband wasn't there."

Ziva was next.

"Henry Adler, thirty-two, the victim's husband" she said summoning a photo of the Adlers at their wedding. Henry Adler was like a blond gorilla next to his petite wife. "He works for a phone company. Their neighbors and Ms Raven say he is introvert, very jealous and possessive towards his wife. They used to fight very often, almost every evening she was home; he used to yell, insult her and the day after it was like nothing happened, they were good at feigning in public."

When the briefing was over, Gibbs ordered McGee and Tony to go and pick the man at work while he went to Abby, leaving Ziva to ask Ducky if when the autopsy was over he could add any detail to the preliminary examination he did on scene.

* * *

"I can't understand why she stayed with him: he was a beast!" McGee considered getting in the car and buckling the seatbelt while Tony started the car.

The senior agent shrugged.

"It isn't our first domestic abuse case, and won't be the last" he just replied.

"Yeah, and I still can't understand why someone chooses to stay with a monster like that. She couldn't really think he loved her" McGee retorted.

"Love works in mysterious ways."

"A wrong ways, you mean."

Tony bitterly smirked.

"Yeah. Wrong."

They rode in silence for a while. McGee watched the agent next to him trying to gauge what he was thinking. It was never easy with DiNozzo, since his brain seemed to be in somwhere far apart from what his body was actually doing. After working side by side for eight years - plus some sporadic case while he was still in Norfolk - McGee couldn't say yet that he really knew his team mate; but in that moment, with his mouth closed and his eyes on the road, Tony didn't look so hard to read, for once.

"Speaking of love" he started slowly. "You and Wendy Miller. How come you never mentioned her?" he asked ready to seize the rare moment when the other agent had his guard lowered.

DiNozzo started almost imperceptibly at her ex-fiancée's name, cursing himself for being caught by surprise.

"Not important" he shrugged.

_Been there, done that. Crash-burn. NTSB is still looking for bodies._ Why did he talk?

"Uh-uh… And how come _Gibbs_ knows her?"

Tony didn't answer right away. Damn Adler for working so far from the Navy Yard: he'd given anything for a shorter trip.

Feeling the younger man's gaze on himself and understanding that his coworker and friend wouldn't give up without ad answer of sort, Tony sighed.

"We were a couple when I started working for NCIS. We… were supposed to get married" he said softly.

"What?!" McGee exclaimed, his eyed wide. Tony DiNozzo… was about to get married? _(2)_ He recovered from the shock as quickly as he could, knowing it wasn't the right approach if he really wanted to know what happened and why Tony had been so weird during the whole case he worked side by side with his ex - he was sure enough that the senior agent didn't want to let it slip, and was probably already berating himself. "Uh… So… Uh… How did you meet?" he then asked.

Tony grinned, amused. He knew that wasn't the question the younger man really wanted to ask.

"We met at school."

McGee's eye, if possible, got even wider. Tony'd never struck him as the type to get married with his high school love. But then again, he'd never struck him as the type to get married…

"You were in the same class?" he asked, suddenly feeling like a gossipy thirteen-year-old.

Tony chuckled.

"I went to a military academy, Probie, a _male_ academy" he answered, and when he noticed the confusion on his friend's face he explained: "She was my music teacher" and enjoyed his shocked look.

"You're making it all up" McGee finally said.

DiNozzo quietly chuckled and shook his head.

"No, Tim. I'm making nothing up."

* * *

_He was eighteen the first time he saw her. The elderly music teacher had retired, and his class was temporarily without a teacher. Tony and his classmates were wondering who'd be appointed to hold the chair, when Wendy Miller walked into the classroom, smiling, young and beautiful._

_Someone whistled, earning a punishment from Commander Campbell, who entered after Miss Miller without_ anyone_ noticing him. After introducing their new teacher, the commander left and the young woman did her first lesson in a male academy full of hormonal teenagers._

_Nobody paid much attention to the lesson, but Music soon became everybody's favorite subject._

_Then again, Miss Miller was aware of the effect she was having on the students and, even if she always tried to keep them from escalating and give her trouble, she was actually flattered by that attention._

_But it was on a Saturday night that her students' - or rather, _one_ of the students', one she'd noticed at school because he was one of the few who could really play the piano well - attentions really struck her._

_The academy students were allowed to leave their campus on the week-ends, if they wanted, to go to their families; and the senior ones who chose to stay at school were allowed to spend their Saturday nights wherever they wanted on the condition that they got back to their dormitory before the curfew._

_Tony and a little group of friends were returning to the campus after having fun, when he noticed a familiar figure staring sadly at her car's engine on the other side of the street._

"_Miss Miller, do you need help?" the young DiNozzo asked getting closer, while his schoolmates watched laughing and jostling each other playfully._

"_I don't know, I have no idea what the problem is" the woman replied rising her eyes onto him._

"_If you want, there's a phone inside that bar: I could call a tow truck and then give you a ride home."_

_Ignoring his schoolmates' whistles and provocative chants, Tony smiled to his teacher, enjoying her affirmative answer. He went to the bar with her, waving his friends triumphantly, and stayed with her until the tow truck came._

_Outside the school, Wendy Miller was very different. If she sometimes joked with her students and flirted with them to stitch them up for a surprise test - and joining the class in their laughter - outside she was a twenty-five-year-old woman, too much of a dreamer for her own good and nothing like the femme fatal she looked._

_They talked for a long time, while waiting for the tow truck and while they were in Tony's car to her place. In less than half an hour they'd gone from 'Miss Miller' to 'Wendy' and Tony'd gone from looking forward to bragging about this with his friends to wishing to see_ Wendy_ again, date her for real._

_When he stopped his car at her place, with a real smile that hid no by-ends, she smiled back and kissed him on his cheek._

"_You are a good boy, Tony" she said and left his car._

* * *

"Here we are" the Senior Field Agent said with forced cheerfulness turning the engine off.

McGee nodded absentmindedly, turning his friend's words in his mind. He was curious to know how the story went on - God, he _did_ look like a gossipy thirteen-year-old! - but he didn't want to pressure him too much: although his constant grandstand, Tony was actually a reserved person. And he didn't like talking about anything really important about himself. That was the reason why after so many years McGee knew very little about his family. And Wendy.

They left their car and walked into the tall glass building that housed the phone company Adler worked for. As far as he could remember, McGee was pretty sure they'd never had any easier case: after killing his wife, Henry Adler had spent the night drinking - if his smell was anything to go by - and the next morning he'd gone to work like any other day; when they walked to him showing their badges he'd looked surprised, but he hadn't tried to run away - for which the younger man was grateful: he really hated when suspects tried to run.

"Mr Adler, we need you to follow us" Tony said.

"Why? What happened?"

He hadn't run away but he was pretending not to know anything. Well, you need to make do with what you have, McGee thought.

The man was surprisingly upset when Tony told him about his wife's murder, so much so that he didn't even try to resist the agents and just followed theme like he was in a trance. He stayed silent during the trip to the Navy Yard, and didn't complain when they left him in Interrogation #1 and went to inform Gibbs.

"Well, that was weird" Tony commented closing the door behind them.

"He's pretending" the other agent shrugged.

"Well, if that's the case, DiCaprio is gonna have to say _ciao ciao_ to the next Oscar as well, because I've never seen anyone that good at pretending."

McGee was about to retort that he knew someone who was scaring good at pretending, and he worked side by side with him every day, but fortunately he stopped himself in time: Tony wouldn't appreciate his remark.

The two agents found Ziva in the office; she pointed the stairs leading to the Director's office.

"Find anything?" Tony asked stopping at his desk and leaning against it with his arms folded, trying to ignore his coworker's not-so-subtle inquisitive stares. He didn't think he was so easy to read, but it seemed his usual masks weren't working properly.

"Ducky confirms she died falling on the glass table" Ziva answered with fake casualness. She knew Tony had understood something was wrong with her the night before - and what was he doing at NCIS that late, anyway? - but he'd acted for her as if nothing had happened, and she wanted to return the favor. "There was no sexual assault, and before dying she struggled for long, as it appears from her bruises. The blood on the glass shards is Ms Adler's, the fingerprints in the living room belong to her, her husband and her friend, the one who called us this morning."

"Now we just need Gibbs to make him confess and we can proceed to arrest Adler" McGee said.

As if on cue, the former Marine appeared on the mezzanine above the squadroom and took the stairs.

"Adler is in #1, Boss" Tony informed him, and Gibbs waved for him to follow while the younger agents - since there was nothing else to do - went to Observation Room #1 to enjoy the show.

Henry Adler still had his stare lost in the space before him. He sat motionless in the same position as when DiNozzo and McGee had left him, and he didn't look aware of his surroundings.

"Shock?" Ziva speculated.

McGee didn't answer right away. He just couldn't understand how that monster could be upset for his wife's death, but Tony was right, he was too good at pretending.

The two senior agents walked inside the room on the other side of the glass and took their places opposite to Adler. The man didn't look like he noticed.

"What did Vance want from Gibbs? He couldn't be already demanding a report on this case, could he?" McGee asked.

Ziva snorted.

"I do not believe so. I think it was about yesterday's case… and NCIS' collaboration with the press" she grimaced.

The other agent watched her curiously for a moment, but he didn't say anything, turning back towards the starting interrogation.

Tony was standing, leaning against the wall behind Adler with his arms folded. Gibbs was showing him the photos of Petty Officer's body to an even more upset Adler.

"Would you believe Wendy Mille is actually older than Tony?" McGee suddenly asked.

Ziva half-snorted half-chuckled.

"She sure does not look younger, with those evident hawk's-feet" she answered without looking away from the scene beyond the glass.

"Crow's-feet, not hawk's. And Wendy has no crow's feet: you two look the same age!" the other agent replied.

"Are you saying I look older than Tony, McGee?" Ziva softly asked turning menacingly towards him.

"Hmm… No, no, of course not. I'm just saying that Wendy doesn't look…" the young man stuttered, but his coworker made a few other dangerous steps closer, making him change his mind. "She _does_, of course she does. She looks much older than you. Very much."

Ziva nodded, satisfied, and returned to the interrogation.

Gibbs was telling Adler their reconstruction of what happened, while Tony was walking around the room making sarcastic jokes. The man, initially confused and grieved, became more and more distressed as it dawned on him that the two agents thought him responsible of his wife's death.

"No!" he yelled when the former Marine told him about how Mary Beth had been pushed on the coffee table by her husband. "That's not how it went! We had an argument, that's true, but then I left, and she was still alive!"

Gibbs and Tony exchanged a look.

"So someone would've entered your house after you left and killed her?" the younger agent asked.

"Yes… I don't know…"

"It's a little hard to believe, Henry. A man who can beat his wife up like that can surely kill her" the agent replied.

"I swear, I didn't kill her! We argued, I didn't beat her up, it was… an argument. She…"

"'She' what?" Gibbs pressed, his voice cold.

"She… She cheated on me" the man answered, defeated. "The cheated on me with… someone."

Tony raised an eyebrow.

"'Someone'?" he repeated, skeptical.

Adler looked uncomfortable.

"And since you thought she cheated on you with 'someone', you decided it was right to beat her up. Why not kill her as well?" the other agent insisted, disgust leaking from every word.

"I didn't kill her" was all the man said, and with that he seemed to shut himself away.

On the other side of the glass, McGee and Ziva watched Gibbs and Tony open the door of the room without uttering another word, and joined them in the corridor.

"Ziva, talk again with Petty Officer's friend and whomever knew her enough among her comrades. See if you can find anything on this supposed cheating" Gibbs ordered.

"You think it could be relevant?"

"Adler won't talk any further" the former Marine answered. The woman nodded and left the three agents to go and talk to Carol Raven. "McGee, take a look at her phone and financial records, see if anything suggests an affair."

"Even if Ms Adler cheated on her husband, it doesn't mean he didn't kill her. It could be our motive" the younger man considered.

"If Adler doesn't talk, circumstantial evidence and rumors aren't gonna be enough" Tony pointed out, and McGee nodded and started to leave.

"I'm gonna call her family: even though she cut all the ties with her parents, she still called her brother sometimes. He could know something" Tony said and was about to follow McGee, but Gibbs stopped him.

"You ok?" he asked.

Tony didn't answer straight away. He was actually surprised by the direct question, but he covered his reaction behind his usual carefree grin.

"All is fine, Boss" he casually replied walking away.

He wasn't sure Gibbs believed him; he was actually pretty sure he didn't, but Tony had no intention to talk with him. Not about Wendy. Not until he'd understand why the former Marine had named him liaison with the press - with his ex-fiancée - albeit he knew how their story ended. The more he thought about it, the less he could understand it.

Gibbs remained outside Interrogation #1 for a few seconds more, staring at the corner DiNozzo'd turned. It didn't often happen that his agent didn't answer a direct question, that he lied to him. He sighed, thinking about his decision to make him work with Ms Miller. He'd really thought it was the best decision. He wasn't so sure anymore.

* * *

Mary Beth's phone records didn't show any suspicious calls: a few calls were towards his brother and the majority was towards her best friend. Her financial didn't show anything either. Since Adler seemed determined not to give them a name, they just had to hope Ziva could gather it from the people close to the victim. DiNozzo was on the phone with the parents to tell them about what had happened and to talk with the victim's younger brother, but he didn't find anything about the mysterious lover.

Tony offered to go and buy lunch for everyone - while they were waiting for Ziva to return with the info they needed - to stop feeling his coworker's stares on himself. He went to the Chinese restaurant close to the Base and ordered for himself and the other three agents, trying not to let his mind wander too much in the meantime. Until then, he'd managed to avoid being alone with Gibbs long enough to be asked questions, and McGee managed to ask him very little - he smiled remembering the younger man's embarrassment while trying to start the dialogue - but he knew Ziva wouldn't hold her curiosity for long. And then there was Abby, and Tony _knew_ he couldn't escape from her. He hoped he could avoid her a little more, but he knew he couldn't do it forever.

Above all, he didn't want to.

He cared about Abby like a little sister, and he would never give up on her friendship, but the forensic specialist sometimes could be… smothering. She just couldn't fathom secrets among friends, while he just couldn't open up for real. He just couldn't. But after eleven years, the young scientist had figured that, just like Gibbs, Tony couldn't deny her anything, and that she just had to insist a little more to obtain the answers she wanted. And insisting was never a problem for Abby Sciuto.

He went back to the office with a bag of the restaurant and gave the cartons to his team mates.

"Next interview is up to Tony and McGee!" were the words that Ziva used to herald her return. Gibbs raised an eyebrow and watched her, impassible. The young agent blushed and went on to inform her collegues about what she'd found. "Petty Officer Adler spent her free time at home or with her best friend. No affair, according to her CO and the few friends she had in the Navy" the said sitting behind her desk and starting to eat the Chinese carton Tony had bought.

"So Adler made everything up" McGee interrupted, but the woman stopped him raising her chopsticks.

"I said _according to her CO and the few friends she had in the Navy_. Her _best_ friend, Petty Officer Raven, did not look at all surprised when I asked her about the victim's lover" she said enjoying her coworker's interested expressions.

"And?" Tony pressed.

"And… she does not know anything. Or, she said she does not know anything, but I am sure she was lying."

The four agents shared a look above their take-outs, while their minds tried to draw the most logic conclusion.

"Why lie?" McGee said voicing the thought of everyone. "It's a motive for Adler, and according to her first testimony, Ms Raven is one of those who believe him to be e awful husband for our Petty Officer…."

"Unless she is trying to protect this lover" Ziva went on.

"So it must be someone she cares about" the informatics specialist speculated, "or maybe one of their superiors, who intimated her to stay quiet."

Gibbs smiled to himself watching the two younger agents reflect. It looked a lot like those - how did DiNozzo call them? - _campfires_ his second had introduced during the months when he was team leader.

"Or maybe it's her."

All three the other agents turned towards Tony, their faces different degrees on confusion, skepticism and annoyance.

"Her? _She_ would be the lover?" Ziva repeated.

The Senior Field Agent shrugged.

"It makes as much sense as the other theories, but it would explain why Adler doesn't wanna give us a name."

The others reflected about DiNozzo's hypothesis, and then Gibbs nodded.

"Go with Ziva and pick her" he said.

"You think she's hiding something else" the agent said fetching his badge and gun and nodding to an annoyed Ziva to follow him.

The boss didn't answer. "McGee" he said. "Check Ms Adler's phone records, see if she called her friend yesterday evening before dying."

Tony and Ziva heard an affirmative answer before the elevator door closed on the squadroom.

* * *

For some reason, Tony knew their trip to pick Ms Raven wouldn't be quiet. It's not that he couldn't understand them: if he were them, he would be consumed by the curiosity to know every detail of the longest relationship of their womanizer team mate. But he wasn't them, he was _himself_, and he didn't wanna talk about Wendy.

For some reason, he knew he'd have to. Again.

"How could you find her _attractive_? She is older than you. And you usually date women so young they are barely of age" was his coworker's terribly abrupt question - _oh, Ziva, if you wanna know a friend's secrets you can't use the same strategy you use with a suspect_.

"Just so you know, I've never dated a woman younger than twenty-five and, well, I don't know about Israel, but legal age here is eighteen. Twenty-one if you wanna drink alcohol, but that's a horse of a different color" Tony said with a wide grin.

Ziva frowned to the unfamiliar American idiom, but didn't let it distract her.

"So, if she was twenty-five, were you the one underage?" she asked with feigned nonchalance.

The senior agent snorted a laugh: it was odd the way the former Mossad assassin was perfectly capable to act her part in a believable way when undercover, how she could make even the most restive suspects confess with her aimed questions and glares, but was so at a loss when it came to interpersonal relationships. They were more similar than either of them cared to admit. And that's why he didn't take offence for her brusque questions, and decided to answer without trying to deflect.

"I had just turned eighteen" he said. He took a breath before going on. "It was my senior year of high school - of boarding school."

* * *

_After that first night, although they kept their relationship as natural as possible at school, Tony and Wendy started dating._

_After getting rid of his friends, curious to know how his night with the hot teacher went, with a shrug and a noncommittal "She's a teacher and I'm a student, how you think it went? She thanked me and told me helping her wouldn't save me from the next test", Tony went to pick her up two weeks later. He'd told his friends he had a date with the redhead he'd met at a bar a few weeks earlier, and he'd taken Wendy to a restaurant at the other side of the city. It wasn't a fancy place because, no matter how much she tried to insist, he'd never let his date pay the bill - no matter how old his date was or what job he had - and he couldn't afford anything more expensive: his father had just agreed to pay his school bills because he was legally compelled to - and he'd threatened Tony to hang him out to dry now that he'd turned eighteen - but he had no intention to reverse his decision of six years before to disinherit him; that left Tony with little money._

_But Wendy didn't care. She liked Tony, he was a good boy, a lot less childish and nicer than he let on at school, and she actually liked a little old-school romanticism._

_The kid, on the other hand, was dazzled by her. She was beautiful, funny, and smart. And she was mature. She hadn't stopped at his façade, she hadn't approached him for his father's name, hadn't left when he told her he didn't get along with his family and was disinherited at the age of twelve. She'd seen the real Tony, and she'd liked him._

_After the first time, they dated again, and again, and again. After two months, Wendy had invited him in her apartment, and it was the most beautiful night he'd spent with a girl. Tony DiNozzo was no rookie under the covers, but it was the first time he was with an older - and more expert - girl than him. It was great._

_He'd spent his week-end with her, and on Monday he'd told his friends he'd been in Maryland with some cousins._

_They stayed together for six months. But at the end of February, while Tony was accompanying her back home, they were spotted by some students._

_In a week, Wendy was intimated to leave, _or else_, and Tony was summoned in the headmaster's office to hear his punishment and the loathed "thank you father's name if we're not throwing you outta here."_

_Wendy left that same day, leaving Tony an apology letter and a promise she'd never forget him._

* * *

Petty Officer Raven looked more scared than confused when the agents asked her to follow them at NCIS. She paled, and stuttered she didn't understand why, she'd told everything she knew. Then she'd recovered her cold head and tried to run away, only to find that a former assassin and a former jock were not easy to leave behind.

Two hours later she was sitting in Interrogation #2, in front on Special Agents Leroy Jethro Gibbs and Ziva David - and Ms David looked pretty pissed for being deceived not just once, but both times they'd talked.

"Petty Officer Raven, did you have an affair with Petty Officer Adler?" Gibbs asked staring her straight in her eyes. Ziva was rocking her chair on its back legs, playing with her knife.

Raven jumped, but she didn't answer.

On the other side of the glass, DiNozzo and McGee were enjoying the show.

"Nobody knew it, you were good to cover it" the former Marine went on. Ziva kept staring at her with cold eyes, fiddling with her knife.

"If Vance saw her with that knife, we'd all be in trouble" McGee emphasized.

Tony chuckled.

"You try to tell her that when she has _that_ look." McGee was horrified by that thought. "Never piss Ziva off: poor Carol is learning that at her own expense."

And sure enough, a little while later, the former Mossad officer decided she'd waited too long for the Petty Officer to answer and suddenly shot up from her chair. She didn't say anything, just started to pace shooting glares to the woman in front of Gibbs, moving her knife from one hand to the other and tightening her grip on the handle.

Carol Raven paled even further, and opened her mouth as if to talk. No sound emitted, and she closed it again before breathing deep and trying again.

"We've been friends for years. But then, when she met Adler and they got married… He was a beast. He beat her up every time she was home, but she was in love and didn't wanna leave him. She even covered for him, when anyone asked about her bruises. I was the only one she told the truth, when she came to me crying."

Ziva had stopped behind Gibbs, the knife still in her hands, her gaze still on the woman.

"A year ago… She came to me, covered in bruised. You could barely see her skin among all that blue and black. I was fetching some ice for her when… it happened. I don't know how, but…." She stopped. Took a breath. Continued. "It went on for almost a year, and nobody suspected anything."

"But then her husband found out" Gibbs said and the woman nodded.

"He was furious. Threatened to make it public, and… though the DADT is no more, Mary Beth knew things would end badly for us. We broke up."

There were a few minutes of quiet. Ms Raven was over with her story. She thought.

The former Marine took a paper from the manila folder on the table and showed it to the Petty Officer.

"These are Mary Beth's phone records" he just said, but it was enough to make her wince. "Before dying, Petty Officer Adler made a phone call. To you. According to our ME she died less than half an hour later after that phone call."

The woman squirmed on her chair, trying to avoid the agents' gazes.

"Ten bucks Gibbs makes her cry" McGee betted.

"Twenty that Ziva makes her" Tony raised with a smirk.

The younger agent laughed.

On the other side of the glass, the woman resumed her pacing, throwing her knife in the air and catching it again. Petty Officer Raven closed her eyes but didn't answer immediately. The agents patiently waited.

"I went to her place" the woman said softly. "She'd had an argument with Henry because he believed we were still dating." She paused and opened her eyes again. Tears fell on her cheeks.

"Damn, she cried by herself" Tony whined.

"What happened when you saw her?" Gibbs pressed.

"We… argued. I told her to leave Henry, to come back with me: I was ready to face whatever consequences there'd be with her, I didn't wanna see her like that anymore…." She paused again, and in the blink of an eye she changed. "But she didn't want to leave him. She _loved_ him. She'd never told me 'I love you', while Henry, who _beat her up_…." There were no more tears in her eyes. "We fought. I didn't wanna… kill her. But if she loved Henry that much even though he beat her up… I wanted some of that love as well. I didn't wanna kill her. She fell on the coffee table and didn't move."

McGee was stunned.

"It looked a case so linear…" he commented.

"Never let appearances fool you" Tony answered, and the other man thought there was no truth more suitable to his friend than that.

Petty Officer Raven was now confessing she'd realized what she'd done and got scared. She'd waited for morning to come, to pretend she'd found the body, knowing Henry usually spent the nights after his arguments with his wife in a bar getting drunk.

It was with great pleasure that Ziva cuffed her and read her her rights, while Gibbs put the phone records back in the folder.

Two hours later, the reports were done and Gibbs sent the three younger agents.

Tony said good-bye to his coworkers and took his car to go home, but about halfway he pulled over, hesitant. The idea to go home and be alone in his apartment was somehow scaring him.

He closed his eyes, his hands tightened around the wheel, breathing deeply. He didn't want to go home. He didn't want to think about her. He wanted to go back to three days before, when she was locked in his past and he could pretend he'd moved on, he'd _really_ grown. But Gibbs' silent stares and McGee and Ziva's questions were making it impossible to withdraw into his cocoon and ignore Wendy's return - and her words.

'I left because I wasn't ready to meet the one, okay? And you were the one'

_What the fuck is that supposed to mean?_

Determined not to go home, and even more not to stay in his car and think, Tony re-started the car and drove downtown. He parked his car in the garage of a bar and entered ready to spend the night in a bed that wasn't his.

* * *

**Author's notes.**

_I didn't mean to write such a long story, but after twenty pages I thought it was better to cut it in chapters, and my one-shot became a 'two-shot' XD_

_I hope you stay with me for next chapter - which is gonna be a little longer than this one (that's really odd for me, I never write such long chapters!) and is gonna be online in a week or so._

_I'm looking forward to reading what you think :)_

**Little explanations:**

_(1) Episode 9x13 'A Desperate Man'._

_(2) I can't fathom how, if Tony never told anyone about Wendy, everyone seems to know about her being his ex-fiancée. So I decided _they don't_. Easy, isn't it? A good trick to fix plot-holes (and thing I can't remember) _u_u


	2. Chapter 2

_A big big thank you to Dixie Dewdrop (I'm so glad you like my explaination of the facts!) and the anonymous guest (you're right, Ziva did a background research on all of the team members, and a failed engagement could've been part of the research, though I'm not that sure… but I really don't think McGee would know too; as for the others, from what Ducky said in autopsy in thaty episode I've always thought he didn't really know the details of what had happened to Tony; same goes for Abby; while Gibbs, well… he knows everything XD Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my doubts, and I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter!) who reviewd last chapter and all of you who added this fic to favs or alerts or just read in silence. I'm glad you enjoyed the first chapter, and I hope you're gonna like the second (which is also the last) as well :)_

_Again, my biggest thank you goes to the greatest beta of the world, _**FrancyChan**_! :)_

* * *

**Chapter 2**

He left… Lisa? Louise? Something-like-that's apartment while it was still dark, and got back home for a quick shower and change. He hadn't slept much - maybe one hour, but the girl whose name he couldn't remember had been worth it - and he needed something that made him look more rested than he was, to avoid the second wound of questions and stares. God, he really hoped Abby wasn't planning to ambush him and third degree him when he had his guard down, it'd been hard enough to avoid her for a whole day.

Problem was, though, that after ten years and a half on the MCRT all his collegues had learnt to identify and circumvent some of his masks - Abby with her hugs and persistence, Gibbs with his piercing stares and head slaps, Ducky with his patient comments and rare quiet he could summon when needed. And Tim and Ziva, with their questions. Because they'd understood as well how to make him answer, they knew when they could insist and when it was better to give up. Hell, even Jimmy _(1)_ had learnt to decipher part of the DiNozzo code.

It was still early when he left home and got back into his car. Resolute not to make Gibbs even more suspicious, he decided to go for a drive before going to NCIS - hoping to spend enough time not to get there before his boss. It wasn't that he'd never got to the office before the former Marine: especially during those months when team Gibbs was a two-man team, Tony was often the one to be answer dispatch's calls about new cases - but the team leader knew that when it happened, it was because something was wrong with him.

He parked in his lot at the Navy Yard at oh-seven fifty-five, and satisfied he took the elevator to the third floor painting his trademark everything-is-peachy grin on his face.

Gibbs was not there, but his jacket on the back of his chair told him the former Marine'd just gone to his morning coffee run and Tony's plan worked. While he was taking off his backpack, Ziva got out of the elevator and gave him a long look before saying hello and taking her place behind her desk.

_Damn_. His plan was useless if Ziva had stared at him like that as soon as she got there. But he was pretty sure he didn't look that bad.

McGee arrived shortly after, but if he noticed anything, he didn't let on.

There were no usual morning banter among the three agents; the three of them started to work diligently, waiting for a case. When Gibbs got back with his Starbucks cup and sat behind his desk, the three of them kept on examining cold cases looking for new leads.

For almost four hours there were no jokes or pranks or silly comments by their SFA; the two younger agents kept exchange confused - and concerned - looks and search their leader's face if he wanted to take any measures. Not that there was any logic reason to take any measure: their colleague was just doing his job with professionalism like any man or woman should in office. But he just wasn't Tony. And all three of them knew that, if their team mate wasn't wasting time joking, it meant something was wrong with him, and that he was trying to avoid thinking about it by focusing on his job. As much as Tony's masks were worrisome per se, their absence was more: a DiNozzo who couldn't keep his façade was a DiNozzo who was at a loss to deal with whatever problem he'd to face, and that often led him to… dangerous solutions.

They all had noticed the dark shadows under their coworker's eyes the previous day, and could see they were even more evident that morning. They'd already seen DiNozzo looking like that, and it never ended well: after Kate, Paula, the disastrous conclusion of the Grenoiulle op, Jeanne leaving, Jenny, the Domino op, Rivkin and the trip to Israel, Dana Hutton, EJ's presumed death… _(1)_ Tony had struggled to come out of the self-destructive spiral, and every time had been harder than the previous one.

On his part, Tony was aware of his younger collegues' concerned looks and his boss' too, but in that moment he didn't want to care: he was sleep-deprived and was already doing his best to keep his brain focused on the files he was examining, he couldn't at the same time make stupid joked to not to make his coworkers worry.

And after all, weren't they the ones who always told him to stop goofing around and start acting like a mature person?

He was forty; it was about time he acted like an adult.

"Maybe I got something" McGee broke the silence. He got up and pointed the remote towards the plasma between his desk and Tony's. "Scott Grey, ten years old. Son of Arthur and Jenna Grey, both in the Navy, he was kidnapped in February, two years ago" he illustrated showing them the kid's photo on the screen.

"I remember him" Gibbs grimly nodded, and they all empathized with him.

It had been an awful case, one of those that every member of law enforcement dreads and loathes with a passion. The kid had been taken from school, nobody had seen anything: one moment he was there, the other he was not.

They'd found his body two days after among the garbage in an alley. The autopsy revealed the boy had been beaten up for a long time before he was choked to death. That night, no-one of them had got home, too upset for what had happened and decided to find justice for the kid and his devastated parents. But after two weeks with no breakthrough, they had to give up the case, waiting for new leads.

"There's a similar case. Actually two: two kids, eleven and ten years old, kidnapped and found a few days after. The finding places were different and far between, but MO looks the same" McGee informed his collegues. There wasn't the usual excitement they felt when they found new leads for a cold case. The young man's voice was soft; his coworkers were listening quietly, looking sadly at the plasma. "Both were taken from school. And both…" McGee paused to push the button on the remote. On the plasma there now were the photos of the three victims: all three of them had red hair and green eyes.

"A serial killer with a definite victimology" Ziva summarized.

"Why didn't we link them together sooner?" Tony asked.

"They weren't our jurisdiction. The second victim's - eleven-year-old Bobby Summers'- parents have a restaurant here in Washington, while Alex McCoy's father works for an insurance company and his mother is a housewife. To link them together was Washington PD; they're investigating the cases as related."

"When were they kidnapped?" Ziva asked.

"Bobby vanished on the eleventh of February, last year, and was found two days after. Alex was taken… the tenth of February, this year, and found two days ago."

McGee's answer was welcomed by the silence.

The four agents were lost in their thoughts for long minutes before the team leader recovered and started giving orders.

"DiNozzo, Ziva. Go and talk to the officers who dealt with the other two cases." They got up with their backpacks to obey. "McGee, retrieve everything we have on the Grey case." The younger agent nodded and got to work.

Gibbs stayed a few more second at his desk, staring at the plasma in front of him, where the kids' photos still were displayed.

He hated cases involving kids.

* * *

"I will drive" Ziva said when, after a quiet ride in the elevator, she and Tony got to the garage.

"Uh, no, thanks. I'd really like to get to destination alive" her coworker replied with a forced smirk. He was still thinking about the last minutes in the squadroom, the kids' photos, the ferocious particulars of their cases.

Ziva fake-pouted and got into the car on the passenger side, wondering how to best approach the subject she wanted to talk to her colleague about - while he was wondering how to avoid the second round of questions. It really wasn't the time to talk about his past private life, not in a moment when they had a children serial killer to catch.

"So…" Ziva began, but Tony interrupted her right away.

"Not now."

"You do not even know what I was about to say" the woman objected frowning. Her colleague threw her a sidelong glance.

"Not now" he repeated.

The former Mossad officer sighed.

"Then when?"

"Not now" Tony said for the third time, and Ziva understood she wouldn't be able to make him talk.

The rest of the journey was quiet.

They got out of the car in front of the Washington PD precinct, and DiNozzo strolled in followed by his collegue: as an ex cop - and since Gibbs didn't have enough patience to deal with police or, even worse, fight over jurisdiction - he was often the one his boss chose as a liaison with the police.

_Well, not only with the police, it seems._

They met the detective who'd linked the civilian victims and, promising they'd keep him in the loop, they obtained the evidence and reports they needed.

With their car full of boxes - Abby would be happy to have so much evidence to examine - the two agents got back to the Navy Yard.

Luckily for Tony, Ziva seemed to have given up to her questions for now. But the SFA knew Abby wouldn't be as easy to contain when they'd meet her with the boxes.

_Damn._

Right as he expected. Just like they'd arranged it - and Tony was pretty sure they _really had_ - as after putting her box down, Ziva exchanged a look with Abby and hurried out of the lab, taking the elevator to the third floor before Tony could even turn toward the door. Having now full scope, the young forensic expert didn't even pretend she wasn't looking forward to have him there, and menacingly- well, menacingly for Abby, so it was more _endearingly_ - pointed her finger at Tony and hissed: "Don't even think about running away before you've given me an explanation, Mister."

Tony sighed. It was pointless to play dumb, so he tried to sneak out in another way.

"It was already over when I started here at NCIS. There was no reason to talk about it."

Abby kept glaring at him.

"You were gonna marry her, Tony. And you didn't tell me."

Why was it so hard to think that Tony DiNozzo had been about to get married? Damn, if Wendy hadn't let it slip, they'd probably given up sooner!

The young Goth's eyes softened.

"Tony" she said quietly, taking a step ahead. "We are friends. Why didn't I know you'd had a girl named Wendy until a few days ago? I thought I was the only one you showed your 'women phone book'."

The agent snorted.

"Wendy's not on the book."

"I know. She… was special to you, wasn't she?." The man started, finally raising his eyes from the box and setting them onto the young scientist. "You were gonna marry her. She was special" she repeated staring at him straight into his eyes.

And Tony realized maybe the reason his coworkers - his friends - all seemed so shocked about him proposing to Wendy, wasn't just because they couldn't picture him engaged to someone.

"Yeah" he just replied. Then he took a deep breath and sat onto one of the stools before the work bench.

* * *

_He hadn't seen Wendy in years. After that last letter where she'd apologized and told him she was leaving the East Coast, the woman hadn't called or contacted him in any way, and he had no way to know what had happened to her since she'd been fired._

_He'd finished school, and with it every relationship with his father, who was no longer forced by the law to pay his expensive academy bill._

_He'd won a scholarship for sports at Ohio University, where he spent the happiest years of his life: __finally, after having cut all family ties__, he'd befriended boys who studied and played sports because they wanted to, and not just because their cumbersome parents wanted them to; he'd joined the basketball team, whose coach had recognized in him a talent worth growing into something more; he'd played that decisive game against the Wolverines that'd crashed every hope he'd had to become a pro along with his knee, and got a degree in Phys Ed thinking that, after all, if he'd managed to get back onto his feet - in spite of what his doctors had told him - he could use his passion for the sports as a coach._

_And then he'd saved that kid from the burning building, and for the first time he'd felt he'd_ made a difference_. And he'd decided that was what he wanted to do. It was like returning to his first passion, the one born during those lonely nights after his mother's death, when he used to stay in his room, forgotten by everyone, with no other company that his TV - with no other company than Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV, the PI who'd won the first place among his childhood heroes_

_He'd entered the Police Academy, graduated with flying colors and was recruited by the Peoria PD._

_Four years - ad two PDs - later, he was in a Baltimore bar with his partner, Danny Price, drowning their last case horrors in alcohol._

"_I can't believe it, it can't be!" Danny was saying staring at the ice in his glass, his expression already slightly inebriated._

"_Oh it can" Tony insisted with a broad grin. He'd been at Baltimore PD for a few months, and he and Danny had bonded right away. With no families of their own, and having their __native ones__ cut all their ties with them, they'd soon become family to each other._

"_The Final Four?" detective Price asked, skeptical. DiNozzo nodded staring at his glass for a moment before downing it. "Holy shit!" his friend exclaimed and laughed._

_Tony turned towards him, ready to tell him about his feats on the field, but he suddenly stopped._

"_My partner! In the Final Four! You must have some photos, a video… something that proves you were there, don't you? Because you gotta admit it's… Tony?." Danny had gone on, distracted by the thought of his friend in the finals of NCAA, but when he'd turned towards him, he'd found DiNozzo staring wide eyed at something like he'd just seen a ghost - and he really hated this cliché. "Tony, what's up?"_

_He followed his friend's gaze to understand the reason behind his reaction, and saw, next to the door, a hot dark haired woman. "You know her?" he asked raising an eyebrow._

_But Tony didn't answer. He took his wallet, picked a fifty dollar bill and left it on the counter next to his empty glass; he stood up and without uttering a word - without giving any sign he'd even heard his partner talking to him in surprise - he went to the dark haired woman._

_Wendy paled as well when she saw him; then she smiled, and her face cheered up._

"_Tony!" she exclaimed closing the distance between them._

_The young man didn't say a word, but when she gently touched his cheek, he closed his eyes inhaling her scent._

_They stood like that for long seconds. When Tony reopened his eyes, he returned her smile._

"_I missed you."_

_They spent their night buying drinks to each other and catching up._

_Wendy told him she'd taken her car as soon as she'd left that letter under his dormitory room at the Academy and drove all night trying to figure what to do. The next day she'd found herself in Baltimore, and stayed there for the following ten years, working as a private piano teacher to pay herself the journalism lessons, her dream. She hadn't managed to enter the environment she really wanted, but she'd written pieces for some minor magazines._

_She told him that she'd never forgotten him. That she still thought about him sometimes. That she'd wondered what'd happened to him._

_It was two in the morning when they'd left the bar, laughing, holding to each other - perhaps just so they didn't fall - and took a cab to her apartment._

_There was no need for words: Wendy took Tony's hand and led him through her living room and corridor to her bedroom. Beyond the threshold, she reached up and kissed him, like it'd been ten hours and not ten years._

* * *

"_Cop" Wendy whispered tracing the word on his naked chest with her finger._

_Tony held her close, kissing her hair. God, how much he'd missed her._

_He didn't say anything, just basking in her closeness, in her skin, smooth and soft under his fingers, in her breath tickling him. He wasn't sure what to answer, actually - was it a question? A comment? A critique? As long as Wendy was there in his arms it didn't matter._

"_I like it" she finally said, and they just lay there in silence for long hours, holding each other, naked among the covers. Maybe they slept, at some point. But when they woke, it was like not even a second had gone by._

_Tony knew Danny'd ask him a lot of questions about the mysterious dark-haired woman as soon as they'd meet at the precinct - and he also knew he was gonna be late - but he didn't care._

_Wendy was back._

* * *

"Does it sound like a cheep '90 comedy if I say it felt like not a day had passed, uh?" Tony tried to joke, forcing himself to smile.

Abby didn't laugh. She had an odd expression and looked like she was gonna hug him - well, it wasn't odd for Abby to hug. In the end, she opted for the Abby Sciuto that didn't come out often, but her friends knew was there, under the eccentric forensic specialist and her excessive energy.

She nodded. Smiled.

And Tony was so grateful.

Smiling back - with a real smile, now - the agent god up and left the scientist to examine the evidence.

When he got back to the squadroom he found McGee and Ziva in front of their computers. The boss was nowhere to be seen, and honestly the Senior Field Agent was relieved: he didn't think he could face Gibbs' piercing looks right after Abby.

The break was short-lived. The former Marine climbed down the stairs from Vance's office just when he was sitting behind his desk, and entered the bullpen demanding a sitrep.

"According to witnesses' statements, all three kids were kidnapped when they came out of school. Different schools, though. There are no immediate links between their parents or themselves… except their appearance" McGee started.

"No ransom demands were made" Ziva went on. "No suspicious phone calls. Nothing strange in the previous days. Nothing."

"He randomly chose them" Tony deducted.

Gibbs stared at him for a long moment.

"No victim is ever randomly chosen, DiNozzo" he corrected, and the agent half-smiled.

"Right, Boss."

Gibbs kept staring at him for a few more seconds, enough to make him uncomfortable - enough to make clear it wasn't because of his comment about the choice of the victims - then turned towards the informatics expert.

"McGee."

"Yes, Boss" was the quick answer.

"Take Ziva and go and talk with the witnesses of the two last kidnappings."

"Uh… I read the police reports, nobody's seen anything" the younger man objected frowning.

"Rule Number Three, Probie: don't believe what you're told, double check" Tony explained before the Boss could glare at anyone.

"Uh, right. On it, Boss" McGee said grabbing his gear as Ziva was doing the same.

"I'm gonna check if Ducky's already examined the autopsy reports" DiNozzo offered after the younger agents disappeared behind the elevator doors. He had no intention to stay alone with Gibbs, and he didn't wait for the former Marine's answer before standing up and hurrying towards the inner elevator.

Not that a trip to the morgue was much safer: Ducky had already shown, a few days before, that he was just as interested as their other coworkers in the mysterious almost-Mrs-DiNozzo. And trying to avoid the inquisitive looks of a Psychology graduated was almost as hard as avoiding Gibbs'.

_Damn._

"Hey, Ducky!" he said as soon as the doors opened.

"Oh, Anthony!" the elderly coroner greeted him raising his eyes from the autopsy photos he was examining. "I was under the impression that you were trying to avoid me for as long as possible. I gather you are running away from Jethro and decided I'm the lesser of two evils, hm?" he said knowingly.

_As I was expecting._

Where was Palmer when he needed him?

Luckily, as if on cue, the ME assistant entered the autopsy room, saving him from answering - and giving him an odd look.

"You had time to review the police reports?" the agent asked, now more at ease, ignoring the elderly doctor's question.

Ducky sighed.

"The young victims show the same kind of injuries. All three of them were beat angrily and then choked to death" he sadly illustrated. "The second victim had deep cuts caused by glass shards. Abigail shall tell you more about them."

Tony nodded. He regretted avoiding the questions about Wendy: it didn't matter how painful thinking about her was, thinking about what those children had had to endure before dying was a lot worse, and reminded him about things he didn't wanna think about anymore. _(3)_

"The beating doesn't seem led by a rational thought" the coroner went on, "while the conclusive asphyxiation was… accurate."

The agent raised an eyebrow in question.

"Quick and as painless as possible" the ME elaborated on.

"Remorse?" Tony asked. _Remorse_. It didn't change what that monster had done.

"Possible" the answer was. "More apparent on the last victim than the previous ones."

They stood in silence for a few minutes, and then Tony took a deep breath to prepare himself to ask the next question - and hear the answer.

"You get an idea about his psychological profile?." _Apart from him being a monster._

"The rage - the _fury_ - shown by the bruises and injuries left by the beating totally contrasts with the way he killed his victims. My opinion is that he lashed out whatever problem was plaguing him against these kids, and then he felt sorry."

"How convenient" the agent snorted.

Ducky couldn't blame him, but was surprised that the younger man had voiced that thought.

"The greater accuracy while killing the last victim suggests that he somehow… improved, maybe practicing after murdering little Summers" the elderly ME said, and Tony held his breath for a moment, thinking about the implications - could there be _more victims_? - "or maybe - and think this is more the case - he _studied_."

"You're saying he's a med student?" Palmer exclaimed, horrified by the thought that some of his peers could be a kids serial killer.

"A med student, or a wanna-be-student. There isn't the same rigor of someone who actually practiced, but I think he must have some theoretical knowledge, at least. Moreover, all three victims were kidnapped in the same week of February, which suggests it's an important date to the killer. The too young victims also have a strong physical resemblance: it suggests they were a substitute for someone to their killer. It also explains the rage in the beating."

"Male?" the agent asked softly. He suddenly felt the need to run away from autopsy. He was ready to talk about Wendy with anyone, Gibbs included.

"I think so. Young, not more that twenty-five."

Tony nodded.

"Thanks, Ducky" he said feeling suddenly tired, if because of the horror of their current case of because he'd slept five hours in two nights, he wasn't sure.

He turned to leave the morgue, but Palmer's voice stopped him.

"Wait for me, I'm coming with you: I gotta take some bullets to Abby for agent Balboa" he said hurrying to the counted on the other side of the room and back to him with a jar with two bullets in his hand.

Ducky waited for them to leave before allowing himself to smile: he was so proud of his young assistant. He just hoped that Tony would open up to him.

"I still can't believe I'm getting married in three months!" Palmer cheerfully exclaimed while he and Tony waited for the elevator. He had a broad grin that made him look even younger than he was, and looked so happy he could start to sing.

Tony shook his head, but he was smiling as well. He was happy that Jimmy had found a girl like Breena, they were a beautiful couple. Really, an embalmer and a medical examiner, what couple is better-matched? He chuckled to himself.

Palmer threw him a wanna-be-hidden glance, but the agent saw it and the smile disappeared from his lips.

_Never underestimate Palmer_, he thought, wondering if he'd look weird, giving up on the elevator and taking the stairs.

"I mean, _I_'m getting married! With Breena!" the kid went on, faking nonchalance. "She's so… _beautiful_… She doesn't look like the kind of girl who'd look at someone like me. But she _has_…." He paused, his expression dreamy. "You know, when I find a jewelry store I still feel like entering and buying a ring. It takes a while for me to remember I've already done it. When she said yes…"

"Jimmy, if you wanna ask just do it" Tony interrupted with a weary sigh.

Palmer stopped talking and turned towards him while the elevator doors opened.

"I don't wanna ask. I want you to talk if you want to" he answered looking at him straight in the eyes.

Tony walked into the elevator followed by the assistant ME.

"I couldn't believe it either, when she said yes" he said, leaning against the elevator wall, hands in his pockets, eyes on the floor.

Palmer pushed the button to Abby's floor. Tony reacted with a lopsided grin.

"One floor won't be enough if you really want me to talk" he said.

The younger man looked at him for a second, while the doors closed.

"You _wanna_ talk?" he seriously asked.

Tony seemed to weight the question - or the assistant in front of him - for a moment, and then he pushed away from the wall and flicked the stop switch. The lights changes. Palmer raised his eyebrows.

"Don't you think agent Gibbs is destroying the elevator brakes enough?" he worriedly asked, trying to laugh.

Tony smirked.

"I'll tell him what you think of his… _habit_" he teased.

Palmer paled, horrified.

"No! I was joking, I swear! Agent Gibbs can do whatever he wants with the elevator…"

The SFA laughed out loud.

"Relax, Jimmy: the elevator company guys resigned themselves to come for the maintenance once a _month_ instead than a _year_."

The younger man visibly relaxed and leaned against the wall opposite to Tony. The agent closed his eyes for a second, gathering his thoughts - and his nerve - to talk.

"I didn't even know that rings had _sizes_" he began.

* * *

_Just as he'd suspected, Danny asked him a lot of questions as soon as he saw him: who was the mysterious woman, where'd they met, why hadn't he told his partner, what'd they do the whole night - and he winked while he was asking this particular question - what he want to do now._

_The latter question was both the easiest and the most complex: Tony wanted to make up for their lost time together, wanted to spend with her every free second he had, didn't wanna leave her ever again._

_They started to date again, and it was beautiful being able to do so openly. They dated like a normal couple, holding each other like two teenagers, having dinner together every time they could._

_Danny witnesses some kind of metamorphosis of his partner, and if he didn't lose the opportunity to tease Tony - as every good friend would - on the other hand he was honestly happy for his partner._

_After few months, Wendy insisted to introduce her boyfriend to her parents and, since he couldn't do the same for her, Tony organized a dinner with Danny and the girl he was then dating. He even decided to try and cook - he practiced the previous days using his partner as a guinea pig, and Danny told him he was probably the only Italian who couldn't cook pasta._

_A year and a half later, Tony was out in the street waiting for an informant when he noticed a guy coming out of a jewelry store with a happy smile and a square box in his hands, and was overwhelmed by the urge to enter. Fifteen minutes later he wore the same silly expression and, there was a bordeaux velvet box in the inside pocket of his jacket._

_He met the informer - after scolding his expression in something more apt to talk with a junkie - and then called Wendy; he told her he'd pick her up at eight and take her to a special place._

_At five past eight, the woman saw her handsome cop chivalrously opening her the door of his Mustang. He was wearing for the first time a dress shirt and jacket above his jeans - she was pretty sure they belonged to Danny, but didn't omit telling him how beautiful he looked, enjoying his embarrassed look._

_It was the date every romantic woman - and every human being - dreams of: Tony took her to a fancy restaurant, helped her to sit like a perfect gentleman, asked for the wine, told her a lot of compliments. And after the dinner he gave her the velvet box._

_The ring revealed to be a bit too small and he awkwardly promised to take it back and have it resized the very next day, but Wendy was so happy she kept staring at the little ring and its solitary white stone crying and smiling at the same time._

_After driving her back home, Tony found he couldn't restart the car. He sat in the dark behind the wheel outside the building where she lived, reliving in his mind her expression while answering his question._

She'd said yes.

* * *

"Are those really for Balboa?" Tony asked to change the subject nodding towards the bullet in the jar Palmer was holding.

"Err… no. They're doctor Mallard's, a souvenir by a Russian spy when they were both captive in Vietnam. Or Korea. I can't remember" the younger man awkwardly answered.

Tony laughed out loud flicking the switch back. Rocking slightly, the elevator started moving again to the forensic lab floor.

The agent left the car with a nod that hid his gratitude to the assistant coroner. The younger man smiled back pushing the bottom to the autopsy floor.

With a deep breath, Tony entered the lab, for once devoid of its usual ear-splitting music, and found the young scientist talking to Gibbs about her findings.

"Ducky says the second victim had injuries caused by glass shards. Forensic analysis by police scientists suggest they're from a tumbler: there were alcohol traces. Scotch" the young expert was saying.

"He was drunk while beating up the kid" the former Marine concluded. "Or he was drinking."

Abby sadly nodded, catching Tony's gaze when he entered the lab, and turned back towards the computer.

"Uh… There were no fingerprints on the bodies, so the killer was wearing gloves. I'm examining evidence from the last scene and comparing the results with the other two. Since it's so recent I think I can find something the police haven't had the time to find yet."

Gibbs grimly nodded.

"Ducky profiled our man" Tony told them approaching the counter and trying to ignore their looks. "No more than twenty-five, med student or wanna-be-student. He thinks the choking is a sign of remorse, while there was anger when he beat the kids to a pulp. It looks he thought it to be perfectly normal until a second before choking them" he said, unable to keep the disgust from his voice.

Abby glanced at Gibbs.

The former Marine sighed. He hated cases involving kids.

* * *

Talking with the witnesses again was another dead end. The three agents were now re-examining the videos of the cameras from the places surrounding the dumping scenes.

At twenty-one fifteen, Gibbs sent his agents home, stopping their protests by pointing to them that passing out from overtiredness would be of no help to the little victims and their families. He threw his Senior Field Agent a meaningful glance, and the younger man answered with a fake smile standing up and taking his backpack, ready to obey.

For some reason, the team leader knew DiNozzo wasn't going home that night either.

* * *

The real problem of spending more nights without a sleeping for real was that, no matter how much he tried, hiding his exhaustion from his teammates depleted his already scarce energy.

Determined to find justice to the three brutally beaten and murdered kids, Tony decided to allow himself at least a few hours of sleep to be able to focus the next day.

Just… not home. Not alone, with his thought free to wander between Wendy and the atrocity of their current case - and of the memories it'd re-awakened.

_Not re-awakened, DiNozzo. Those memories'd never gone to sleep, uh?_

Stopping his thought before they could go exactly where he didn't want them, Tony parked next to a bar, removed his tie and combed his hair in the rearview mirror. When he was satisfied of his transformation from cop-at-the-end-of-the-day to I've-dressed-up-for-the-occasion, he climbed out the car, locked it and strolled into the bar.

Nine hours later, contented for the good night's fuck and sleep, he left Mary's - he even remembered her name, this time - place and got back home to have a shower and change.

He even managed to get to work after McGee and Ziva, and joined his coworkers in the examination of the videos.

Gibbs spent half morning with Vance and the victims' parents and when he entered the bullpen he was obviously in a bad mood. Unfortunately, none of his agents had any news for him yet.

They worked the entire morning on the surveillance videos, but without a description for neither their suspect nor his vehicle, the chances to find something were close to nothing. Problem was they had no lead.

Ducky had joined the police medical examiner to have a look at the last victim before he'd be given back to his parents, so the four agents hoped his return would provide their case the lead they needed. Or that Abby's 'babies', as she called her machines, would. Until then, though, they could do nothing but check the witnesses' statements and videos again and again.

Ziva offered to go to the Chinese take-out for them all. She got back a little later with two large plastic bags and gave her team mates their cartons.

"Pause!" she ordered while putting the almond chicken on McGee's desk. The young agent started and raised his eyes onto her.

"Eh?" he asked, not too smartly.

"The video, McGee! Rewind it!" the woman answered losing her patience, pointing at the screen.

Frowning, the young man complied, while the two senior agents stood up and approached them.

"Here, stop" Ziva said pointing at a man walking the street next to the dumping site of Bobby Summers. The young man was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt and…

"He's a redhead!" Tony exclaimed running to his computer. Neither Gibbs nor McGee seemed to understand what their teammates found in the kid on screen, but their hopes for a lead rose.

DiNozzo opened the video he'd checked that morning and after a little fumbling with the keys he managed to put it on the plasma next to his desk.

There was the same guy, wearing jeans, t-shirt and jacket.

"He is also in the video I was watching" Ziva explained.

"And he's a redhead, it could be the reason why he chose those victims" Tony added.

"So the kids would be… himself?" McGee speculated.

Gibbs stood in silence, thinking. That guy could be on those video out of coincidence, but those were different place, far from each other. And he didn't believe in coincidences. He ordered the three agents to follow the redhead kid through the video to try and retrace his movements and, with a little luck, find a vehicle.

"And send a screenshot of his face to Abby" he told McGee before picking his cell phone to call Ducky.

Now reanimated by the turn of events, the three of them got back to work, the cartons of food getting colder, forgotten next to their computers.

Gibbs' phone rang after a fruitless hour later.

"Coming, Abs" was all the team leader answered.

The three agents exchanged a knowing look and followed their boss without a word. They wanted to listen to whatever Abby'd found.

"Wow, the complete team" the scientist greeted them with a half-smile.

"What you got?" Gibbs asked.

"A DNA" she answered, proud of herself. She summoned the info on screen, but no name or photo appeared.

"Abby?" the former Marine urged.

"I didn't say 'a name', Gibbs, just 'a DNA'" she pointed out. "Under the third victim's fingernail the police gathered a sample of skin. I have a DNA, and it's gonna be useful when you get a sample to compare" she said. The four agents couldn't hide their disappointment, but the young woman kept smiling. "Anybody wanna know what _else_ I got?" she asked with a broad smile.

Gibbs grunted something that sounded like impatience, and Abby got back to the keyboard with a huff.

"I compared the photo McGee sent me with our archive. Not all the archive, of course, it would take days, but I narrowed the research by age and hair color. Did you know the redheads are just two percent of world population?"

"Abby" Gibbs warned.

"Ooookaaay. Anyway, I couldn't find him, he's not in the Navy nor military and he doesn't work for us. This one was obvious, but my program just searches among our employees too. This is what I _don't_ have. What I _do_ have is other traces of scotch. Our man loves drinking while beating his victims. What's new, though, is that now I know that he drinks expensive stuff. I was able to retrace it to the brand and…" she left her sentence pending and summoned new info on screen. "There are just three stores in the tri-state area that sell it" she proudly announced turning back towards them with a half-pirouette that should've been impossible on her platform boots.

"McGee, Ziva" Gibbs ordered and they hurried to obey the unvoiced command. "Good job, Abs" he told the young woman kissing her on the cheek.

She contentedly smiled, returning to her computers and her Caf-Pow cup next to them, while the two senior agents left the lab.

"You ok?" the team leader asked when the elevator doors closed behind him and his SFA.

Tony started. Too focused on the break in the case, he'd followed the boss without thinking and he was now trapped in the metal cabin with him with no way to escape Gibbs' questions and looks. It took his brain a few seconds to register his boss' question and expression.

"Uh?" was his not very articulate answer. "Yeah, I'm fine" he answered finally understanding that his boss was talking about their case. He even managed to smile, relieved.

The former Marine nodded.

"I was thinking" Tony started a few minutes later, when he and Gibbs sat at their desks waiting for their teammates. The boss raised an eyebrow. "How old you think our suspect is?"

Gibbs stared at him for a second, not understanding where his second's question was going.

"Eighteen, nineteen" he slowly answered.

"He'd need a well counterfeited ID to buy alcohol…" the younger man pointed.

"… let alone some particular brand you can find in just three stores in all DC" Gibbs concluded.

They sat in silence turning this consideration in their minds. The shrill of the team leader's phone shook them out of their reverie.

"Gibbs" he answered. He listened for a few seconds and then turned towards DiNozzo. The younger man raised his head in hope. "Good" he said before hanging up.

"They have a name?" the Senior Field Agent asked right away.

"Better" the boss answered.

* * *

Erik Drake, nineteen years old, worked part-time as a storage keeper in the second store where McGee and Ziva entered. The store owner asked the kid to take him the register of their customers, and the agents immediately recognized him from the video they'd spent their whole morning watching.

The kid didn't even get suspicious when his boss told him that they weren't clients but NCIS agents; his first thought was 'NC-what?' and two seconds later he found himself handcuffed in the feds' car on his way towards the Navy Yard. Half an hour later he was sitting in one of the uncomfortable metal chair in the Interrogation Room; waiting.

Gibbs entered with a thick folder in his hands. He sat opposite to him and spread several photos on the table. He didn't say anything, he just waited for Drake to lower his eyes on the pictures of the children on the scenes, wince and turn hurriedly towards the wall.

"That's your work" the former Marine told him, his voice cold.

In Observation, the three younger agents watched the interrogation. Ducky had returned confirming their hypothesis, and was now in Abby's lab listening to Palmer updates.

They had no fingerprints to link Drake to the three victims, and they had no foundation to demand a DNA sample to compare to the one found under little Summers fingernails; only a confession could give them the certainty that he was the right man. Well, they didn't actually _need_ it to be certain: Gibbs believed him to be guilty, and that was enough for his team, but law needed something more.

Meanwhile, the kid kept looking at anything but the photos on the table. His arms were tight around his body, and he had an odd expression - guilt?

"Scott Grey. Ten years old. He used to attend the elementary school of the Naval Base in Norfolk and take piano lessons in the afternoon. He used to dream of entering the Julliard, when he'd be older" Gibbs said pointing the first victim's photo without averting his gaze from the kid in front of him. Drake tightened his self-hug but nothing else showed he'd even heard. "Bobby Summers. Eleven years old. He used to play basket after school and in the evening he used to look after his two-year-old sister while their parents worked at their restaurant" the agent went on switching to the second photo. The kid didn't look at it either. "Alex McCoy was ten. The first of his class. He'd won a prize for a science project, one of those lava-spilling volcanos. He was so proud of himself because he'd made it all by himself. His dad promised he'd take him fishing next Sunday to celebrate."

This seemed to shake the kid. At the word 'dad' he started and his eyes flicked to the photo of little McCoy for a second. His expression changed: there was no guilt anymore, his eyes were now colder, more similar to the brutal murderer he was.

_Bingo._

Gibbs raised his eyes towards the camera.

"What do we know about his father?" Tony asked his teammates seeing the team leader's signal.

"Uh." McGee tapped something on his PDA. "Peter Drake, fifty-eight. He has criminal records for brawl, assault, child abuse. He's now in prison - again. Two years ago his wife died for an OD."

"And his son started beating and killing children" Ziva added.

Meanwhile, Gibbs was showing the suspect other photos of the last victim: one with his class, one next to the volcano that had made him win; one with his parents. In the latter, the kid had a broad proud grin; he was wearing the first place cockade, and his mother was kissing him on the cheek while his father, on his other side, had a proud look and a hand on his shoulder.

Drake tightened his jaw.

"Why beating and killing a ten-year-old himself?" Tony asked.

McGee searched on his PDA.

"His father first conviction was when Erik was ten and a half. Bar brawl. He was arrested and spent his night in lock-up. He had no criminal records yet, he could've gone home the next day, but one of the guys he sent in hospital was a cop; Drake was sentenced to six months."

"Yeah, but why lashing out against himself?" Ziva asked. "Why not against his father?."

The other two agents were wondering the same thing. But then Gibbs started fiddling with McCoys' photo, and Drake tensed even more.

"Maybe he wasn't lashing out against himself?" McGee conjectured.

"What happened to his mother after his father conviction?" Tony asked.

"She was admitted to hospital for… and OD. The first of many, it seems" the younger man answered.

"The ground crumbled underneath him. A moment he had his family, a moment later his father is in jail, his mother is in hospital and he's lost everything" the senior agent concluded. He sighed. "His father has records for child abuse… he was the child, wasn't he?"

There was no need for McGee confirmation, they'd all come to the same conclusion.

"No-one of the victims had a violent father of an addicted mother. They were perfect family. Like his one before his father went to jail" Ziva went on. "He was… envious."

The informatics expert nodded.

"He's lost everything when he was ten, while this kids, though they looked so much like him, still had their lovely families."

"We still have to find out how he found them."

"In the store's client register there are the schools of the victims" Ziva remembered. "They supplied the cafeterias with water and drinks."

"He could've seen them while he was delivering supplies, noticed something they said or did, or just their resemblance to himself. Then he decided to kidnap them and… blow off the steam on them" Tony grimly concluded.

McGee sent to Gibbs' phone their hypothesis and the info they'd found, and the team leader gave the camera a brief nod - a silent 'good job, guys' - before returning to the interrogation. He kept playing with the photo for a while, pushing their young suspect on the edge of his self-control before starting to rattle things about _his_ life.

McGee kept sending info to his phone - they hadn't had enough time for a real briefing, since what was meant to be the search for a witness had turned into an arrest, but as long as it was just reading texts Gibbs seemed content to use a little technology; Tim not so much, since he had to stick with texts, because of their boss' old-fashioned phone.

Less than half an hour later, young Drake exploded. He jumped to his feet, sending his chair crashing noisily on the floor, and started yelling against his father for ruining his life, against the unfairness of life, against his shattered dream of attending med school, too expensive for him, against everything and everyone. Gradually, his yelling diminished and the kid let himself slide to the floor against the wall next to the mirror, crying.

On the other side of it, the three agents followed the scene.

"In the end, he choked them out of remorse. To save them from the torture he himself inflicted them."

* * *

It was late in the night when the reports of that horrible case were completed and Gibbs sent his agents home. He watched them tiredly turning off their computers and lamps and taking their things.

"Home, DiNozzo" he stressed when his senior agent stood up as well to take the elevator. He was him pause and then hurry after the others.

Finally alone in the bullpen, he sighed. He really hoped his agent would follow his order - and that he'd recognized it as such - and go home. It'd been a long week, and they all needed a break. He even had a half-idea to ask Vance to take them off-rotation for the week-end, but he wasn't sure it'd be a good idea.

Hoping he'd taken the right decision, he got up, turned off his computer and lamp as well and went back home and to his last project, a doll's house for the daughter of a neighbor. It was the first time he built a doll's house since Kelly had gone. He'd decided a long time ago that he'd never made miniature pieces of furniture if his girl couldn't have them anymore, but the neighbor's daughter had a nice and happy smile, too similar to Kelly's for him to not to see their resemblance. For him to not to want to make something _for Kelly_ again.

He was carving a little sofa to match the armchair when he heard his front door open and footsteps through his living room.

He almost held his breath when the basement door slowly opened. But the footsteps stopped, went back, stopped again, approached the basement door. And went on.

Gibbs didn't raise his eyes from what he was doing, waiting for his visitor to take his usual spot at the bottom of the stairs. But he didn't. He stopped on the top and sat there, in silence.

The team leader sighed. Probably he should've be glad he'd come in the first place, in spite of everything. But he'd hoped for something more.

Tony sat in silence on the top step for almost an hour while Gibbs worked on the doll's house living room. Every minute that went by, unbeknown to the other man, each one of them wondering if he shouldn't be the one to finally say something, because the quiet of the nights they'd often spent in the basement had never been so tense; but every time one renounced because it'd been his agent who'd come to his place, while the other… just renounced, waiting to understand why he'd came there.

In the end, Tony took a deep breath and closed his eyes, allowing the words to flow on their own.

"When I found out about Danny, I felt the ground crumble underneath me" he started. Gibbs imperceptibly paused while sanding the round coffee table and closed his eyes in gratitude for a second. "He was my partner; and he was my friend; he was the first person I'd ever got close to for real. Finding that he'd lied to me, that he was a dirty cop… But I decided not to turn him in. I couldn't. But that left me with few choices. The easiest, the one I preferred, was giving up it all, moving and finding a new job. It was the best choice. And the choice Wendy liked better."

* * *

"_A safer job, where I don't have to fear that every time someone rings my doorbell is to tell me you're not coming back evermore" the woman said when he told her his idea. She looked honestly concerned for him, and reached up to caress his face. The ring was beautiful on her finger._

_They were in the middle of the organization for their wedding, which should be in six months, and they had yet to decide where to go. Tony being about to be unemployed - he was planning to resign as soon as possible - brought a big problem: money._

"_Maybe a well-paid job" she chuckled sliding her hand on his chest with a mischievous grin._

"_As a gigolo, maybe?" he teased and she laughed out loud giving him a fake-punch. "You know that one way or another I'm gonna take care of you. I'll find a job soon, we'll get married, move together and be happy forever" he promised._

"_How did I manage to find such a sweet and romantic man?"_

* * *

"For years I believed that was the problem: her leaving her job. Probably she just did it for me, because she understood how I cared about this job. Maybe she thought she could give up hers… but she finally realized that it wasn't worth it, that _I _wasn't worth it. The house here was ready, we were about to get married… and the evening prior to the wedding she came to me and gave me the ring. No explanations. A pathetic excuse I can't even remember anymore and ten minutes later she'd left Baltimore, changed her phone number and vanished. There _had_ to be a reason, right?" Tony said miserably.

Gibbs kept working on the miniature pieces of furniture, but he wasn't focusing on the job at hand. He remembered all too well the evening Wendy'd left the younger man, because it'd been the first time he came to his boss' place. He'd sat on his porch steps, waiting for him to return from work, and when he'd seen him he'd smiled like nothing happened and showed him a six-pack of beers. _To celebrate the end of FLETC_, he said. They'd entered and spent the night watching the game and, before leaving, like he'd just remembered, Tony said that Wendy'd left him. It was the first time Gibbs had witnessed how good the kid was at acting - at pretending.

"But now she's returned and told me… told me she wasn't ready for _the one_" the younger man concluded, confused and… upset.

The team leader finally put the little cupboard on his table and turned on his stool towards the stairs. Tony was still sitting on the top, elbows on the knees, head bowed.

They stayed silent for long minutes.

"Why you assigned me as liaison agent with the press?" was the phrase that broke the silence. And Gibbs was expecting it, had been for days, actually. He'd seen it his agent's eyes the few times he'd met his gaze, in the shadows under his eyes due to sleep-deprivation, in his excuses not to be alone in the bullpen with his boss.

"Because you loved her" he answered.

Tony snorted.

"It's been almost eleven years" he retorted.

"And you still love her" was the former Marine's quick answer.

The agent finally raised his head and for the first time turned toward the basement, meeting his boss' eyes.

"So you wanted to play Cupid?" he tauntingly asked.

"No. I wanted to give you the chance to gain closure. To finally open the new chapter of your life that you've put off for almost eleven years."

"No offence, Gibbs, but my life is my business" Tony snapped.

"Eleven years, Tony. Eleven years, and what's the first thing you've done as soon as you've found yourself alone with Wendy?"

The younger man didn't reply. He was sure McGee hadn't told the boss anything, but somehow he seemed to always know everything. He snorted; after eleven years he should've been used to the former Marine's almost psychic powers. After all, that man had built for years boats in his basement and had managed to get at least one of them out - it was now in the evidence garage at NCIS, and Abby secretly went to see if it was still there once a week, to be sure it hadn't vanished.

"I'm sorry."

If he hadn't heard him with his very ears he would've never believed him.

"What happened to Rule Number Six?" Tony asked with a nervous chuckle.

"It doesn't count between friends" Gibbs replied and then, sensing his agent's discomfort he added: "Not when it's been three days since last time you've returned home and you've made a joke or a stupid movie quote."

Tony laughed.

"I thought you hated my movie quotes. And by the way, did you know the Duke says 'Never apologize, mister, it's a sign of weakness' in 'She wore a yellow ribbon'? Did you copy from him or was it him who copied from you?"

Gibbs shook his head, picking the mini-cupboard again and resuming carving shelves.

"Thanks" the younger man said after a long silence. "Don't misunderstand me, seeing her again was… devastating. And working alongside of her was painful. But at least…." He paused, searching the right words. "I had my closure." He snorted a brief laugh. "You were right. As always."

Gibbs wasn't so sure. He'd never wanted to cause him pain, even if his intent had been good. But he was happy Tony had somehow forgiven him.

He put the little cupboard and the knife on the table and stood up.

"You eaten yet?" he asked his agent.

"Uh, no, I just… went for a drive before coming here" Tony awkwardly answered.

Gibbs let the obvious lie go: he _didn't_ wanna know what his agents had done for real in the hour between he'd left the Navy Yard and he'd come to his place.

"I have a coupl of steaks in the fridge."

The younger man seemed to lighten up. He stood up dusting off his pants and followed his boss - who halfway reached up and slapped him across the head.

"And I'd never copy from a John Wayne movie."

"Got it, Boss."

* * *

**Author's notes**

_And we reached the end!_

_Thank you all for resisting till here! I hope you have a little strength left to leave me a little review :)_

_Now, on with the (long) explanations!_

**Explanations:**

_(1) Somewhere during fourth or fifth season, and in the 6x16 'Bounce', Tony and Palmer are shown to have developed a pretty good friendship while Gibbs was in Mexico. I don't know why the authors keep forgetting about the things I love, but I have no intention of forgetting: my Jimmy isn't just Ducky's funny sidekick: he's part of the team. Poor boy, he's just been added to the opening sequence after ten years! XD_

_(2) Reading fanfictions, I hate when I can't remember what episodes are being referenced. So here's a little list (with explanations nobody-cares-about) of the episodes I named:_

_Kate dies in 3x02 'Kill Ari - part II': I like thinking that her teammates haven't gotten over her death that easily. I was really sad when she died, so much so that I couldn't stand Ziva at the beginning XD I like when on the show they still think about her, sometimes_

_Paula Cassidy (who Tony flirts with in 1x08 'Minimum security'), dies in 4x19 ('Grace period'). Tony is really upset for her death and the episode ends with him going to Jeanne's to tell her 'I love you', crying. My favorite episode ever._

_The Grenoiulle op, after being the main story arc in season four, ends with Tony's car explosion and Rene Benoit's death in 5x01 'Bury your dead'._

_Jeanne leaves at the end of 5x14 'Internal affairs'. I watched again and again the heartbreaking scene in front of the elevator ('Was any of it real?' 'no' ç_ç)._

_Jenny dies n 5x18-19 'Judgment day'. Tony feels guilty because he and Ziva were supposed to be her protection detail. During the investigation, Tony goes to autopsy and drinks, a habit he hints at during the second episode of sixth season._

_Domino op covers the first part of season six and ends in 6x09 'Dagger' with Michelle Lee's death. There's a scene I love where Tony vents his frustration while in the elevator with Ziva because he thinks the deceit that caused the two of them to be injured was set by Vance; a little while later he finds out there was Gibbs behind it (and he gets mad again, in autopsy)._

_Rivkin's death and the trip to Israel are happen in 6x25 'Aliyah'. Our beloved DiNozzo fells guilty again, first because he killed Ziva's friend/lover, and then because she stays in Israel. His guilt will drive him to investigate when she disappear and to try and avenge her death… but then they find out our beloved Mossad agent was alive and captive in Somalia (7x01 'Truth or consequences')._

_Dana Hutton (7x21 'Obsession') was a journalist Tony felt obsessed by during a case. Watching her closely (and I just noticed it after reading a wonderful fancition here on FFN) she looks like Jeanne. I know, I know, it's just the fangirl in me, but I wanna believe Tony was obsessed by her because of this (supposed) resemblance._

_EJ vanishes and is believed dead in 9x01 'Nature of the beast', and comes back (and leaves for good) in 9x12 'Housekeeping'._

_(3) Oh, yeah, I'm _one of those fans_ who loves imagining Tony's childhood as awful. Well, it's not my fault if the authors hinted of a crappy childhood for six seasons before signing Wagner on and falling in love with him enough to clean Senior's records, is it?_


End file.
